A student project of University of Guelph course
THST*2450 Approaches to Media Studies

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Coke Reality I

Watch this ad and tell me what you see. Does using and editing a pre-existing Coca-Cola ad successful in convincing you? If you have never heard of the Killer Coke campaign, does the sound byte make you curious enough to know more?

The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke is the largest campaign to spread awareness and protest against Coke’s corrupted practices. Its motivation based primarily upon the scandalous murders and kidnappings of hundreds that occurred in Colombia’s bottling plant since 1989. In an act of resolution, the campaign strives to boycott and remove endorsements or contracts with Coca-Cola products in institutions in order to force the company into negotiating an agreement that will protect the rights and safety of workers in their factories. So far, the campaign has influenced a significant number of high schools and universities, whose age range make up the greater demographic of Coke consumers, to further spread the protest. This is the kind of activism that has been yearned for in Danny Schechter’s manifesto about disseminating the big corporations. It is what Stephen Duncombe imagined in the ethical spectacle and the step forward in the bottom-up model of democracy.